Sunday, November 05, 2017

Notes from Graebert's Annual Meeting 2017 in Berlin

Issue # 957

The aim, says Graebert Gmbh CEO Wilfried Graebert, is to hold his company's annual meeting in a different, interesting place, in Berlin, every year. This year, it was held in the spectacular Axica Kongress- und Tagungszentrum [conference and day center], situated in the courtyard of a bank, next to the American embassy, adjacent to the Brandenburg gate. It was designed by Frank Ghery, apparently in his pre-CAD days, and led him to demanding that his staff look into CAD.

Frank Gehry's familiar folded metal roof covers the conference hall

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Trinityis Graebert Gmbh's name for its triple, triple CAD offering:

ARES Professional and Standard for desktops and laptops for Linux, MacOS, and Windows

ARES Touch for Android and iOS mobile devices

ARES Kudo for Web browsers

There are all kinds of ways to get the software. While Graebert gives you Touch and Kudo "free" with an annual ARES subscription, Corel plans to license its version of Touch separately from its ARES-based CorelCAD.

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NEW. Should you fail to renew a subscription, Graebert now lets you renew late, but it incurs this (minor) penalty. Renew, for instance, three months late, and your sub renews as of last expiry date.

There is the plan to rent ARES Touch from Apple app store for $29/month, and so get desktop ARES and browser-based Kudo "free." (This isn't implemented yet.)

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NEW. The beta for ARES Professional 2018 is an open beta, and you can still download it from https:// www.graebert.com/try2018PR64. The figure below shows what it looks like. ARES 2008 is due to ship later this month.

Given the hardware and OS differences, it is difficult to provide the same API [application programming interface] for all, and so here is an overview of which APIs work with cloud, mobile, and desktop. Notice that LISP, C++, DCL, and Qt are common to all three systems.

Qt added to the common set of APIs

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NEW. AutoCAD workalikes tend to be weak in certain areas, such as rendering, probably because the kinds of users who use (mostly) 2D CAD don't care about 3D rendering. Graebert has provided a link to the stand-alone Artisan rendering program from Pictorex.

But now Graebert has licensed the real-time, physics-based Unicorn renderer from Space Tech of France -- a company I had never heard of before. https://www.unicornrender.com/

Real-time means that we can make adjustments to the scene before the rendering is finished

Physics-based means that materials are stored in layers, entities, or colors, and then the light calculations take the materials into account

Unicorn reminds me of Keyshot. Graebert licensed just the Quick version, which renders with sufficient quality much more quickly than the Full version. The figure below shows the Unicorn interface.

Unicorn rendering a kitchen modeled in ARES Professional

The renderer works only on the 64-bit Windows version of ARES desktop with a recommended 8GB RAM and 500-core nVidia graphics board -- so not cross-platform. But it will work with 4GB RAM and i5 CPU-based rendering. The cost is 149 pounds or Euros.

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NEW. Competition for the ITC: A new OEM product from Graebert is called "Powered by ARES" to run vertical add-ons. It is based on their 2D-only, Windows-only ARES Standard program. It is priced at $1,000 for the first setup, and then $500 for each setup thereafter. (A setup is where Graebert customizes the program to your needs.) Royalties are $250/seat for a perpetual license, and then 50% of that for future upgrades. There is no pressure to upgrade.

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I had not known about ARES Standard, which Graebert uses as a competitor against AutoCAD LT, but which has an API that LT lacks. Until now, Standard was sold mainly in Japan and India.

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The other, older OEM product from Graebert is known as "ARES OEM." This is the full ARES Professional program with your branding. Minimum price is based on sales of 100 seats per year, but the pricing is flexible depending on your circumstances, and so is not published. This is the program used by Corel and Dassault Systemes.

Third-party developers can migrate from less-capable but cheaper "Powered by ARES" to full-featured "ARES OEM."

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ARES Mechanical was the first add-on written by Graebert, released two years ago. It sold until now primarily in India, but now has been expanded to English and German. The conference did not detail its features.

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NEW. ARES Sketch is a new stand-alone program that has nothing to do with sketching. It's actually GIS-oriented [geographic information systems, or mapping] software for quickly drawing up floor plans for property tax assessments. In the USA, apparently, property taxes are based on square footage and the use of each sq ft. It has intelligence to draw floor layouts faster (as shown below), saves in DWG, and is due to become available at the end of this year.

In the near future, Kudo (for Web browsers) will allow simultaneous editing, where two or more designers work on the same drawing at the same time from different locations. Annotations will be possible, and a REST API [REpresentational State Transfer, a stateless programming architecture] added for accessing the drawing structure and thumbnail images.

This year's Kudo opens DWG 4x-5x faster than last year. In the near future, it'll open files from Revit and Microstation, as well as those stored on OneDrive and Trimble LiveCloud. Graebert foresees Kudo being integrated into online drives, such as Box, and other software, like facilities management. This reminds me of when then-new DWG viewers were being integrated into other software in the early 1990s.

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With all that talk about Kudo supporting all kinds of files and file systems, it was logical for Graebert to make Kudo the central file hub for all files accessed by its software. The latest releases of ARES and Touch get a new panel that looks into Kudo's file manager.

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A future release of Touch will get the Properties panel, quick notes and sketching system that can use your finger or (if supported) stylus, and areas and distances that can be copied to the Clipboard -- and access to the Kudo file manager.

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NEW. Graebert is putting a big emphasis on corporate sales and support. There's MDM [mobile device management] for provisioning hundreds or thousands of mobile devices with the same apps and settings, and network licensing for desktops.

The company's chief technical officer Robert Graebert says that large corporations are interested in the Trinity proposition, in that Graebert can provide them with CAD software that runs on desktops, on mobile devices, and on computers with no CAD software (via Web browsers) -- as well as the Kudo single-source file hub.

3D Systems acquired TeamPlatform in 2013, but now is shutting it down at the end of this year. The reasons given by the company are that the file sharing and 3D collaboration site is suffering from performance problems that would be costly to fix, and that it had a small number of users. The company said, "There are many commercial products on the market today with similar capabilities," and pledged to assist customers to make the move. https://www.teamplatform.com

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When Altair Engineering (ALTR) went public last week, its IPO [initial public offering] of $13/share zoomed up 41% the first day, raising $156 million for the simulation software company to pay down debt incurred when it bought out the investment another firm made in Altair years ago. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/altair-engineering

Dassault Systemes Q3 revenue went up 6% to €752.9 million (US$875M), with Solidworks revenues went up 16%. The world's largest CAD software company expects annual revenues for this year to be in the range of €3.185-3.205 billion -- about US$3.7 billion.

In October 2019, the Internet will be 50 years old, sagging under the weight of spam, virii, selfies, and linkbait.

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Letters to the Editor

Re: BIM is the Canoe, Construction is the River

Good explanation of the differences between adoption of CAM and of BIM. I would add two factors:1. In BIM the model is created by designers who necessarily lack specific knowledge of the myriad trades, products, and details that must be correct for the building to fit together and work. In CAM, the comparable inputs are known and understood by the designers.2. To the extent that BIM has been successful, much of it is due to implementation via IPD [integrated project delivery]. It brings key subcontractors and suppliers into the project earlier than is typical of design-bid-build projects and with intensive involvement. The "BIM enthusiasts" herald the role of BIM, and downplay the role of IPD.

While I appreciate the canoe metaphor, sometimes those doing the planning before hitting the rapids have never been in a canoe. IPD can be compared to bringing canoeists into the planning. - Leo Schlosberg Cary Concrete

The editor replies: In the editorial, I attempted to emphasize the gap that exists between the theoretical (BIM) and the practical (construction). Your letter adds nicely to the idea.

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Ummmmm: "BIM is like a canoe on a river." This is an extraordinarily feeble analogy, especially from someone as accomplished as Ms. Suchman. Carrying that analogy further, then, all planning, for any human endeavor, is pointless, because we will inevitably encounter deviations from the ideal, and we will be unable to adapt in real time. What to do, what to do?? We should just give up, and let the river control us, since the river is in charge of the canoe, like construction is in charge of BIM.

BIM is not one software program, it is a term that is literally centered around Information. This Information is the data that describes the building’s components. Once the data is created electronically, it is available for manipulation with modern computers, to identify and solve a whole host of problems.

I would argue that the construction industry has adopted BIM [building information modeling], though not by their use of Revit. (Revit is software created for solving the problems of design, not construction.) Up until about 10 or 15 years ago, contractors relied almost exclusively on paper documents for their instructions on how to construct a building, but these days most contractors of any size rely on Navisworks. This software tool models the building information (the data) in a way that is most suitable for their use: for the physical and temporal coordination of building components during construction.

Beyond the construction phase, owners are also adopting BIM, though not by their use of Revit or Navisworks, but through the use of facilities management tools like Ecodomus, Tririga, and FM:Systems. These software packages take the building information, the data, and use that data to determine maintenance schedules and to manage real estate decisions.

How were these tasks accomplished before the data (or the Information) was made available electronically? Designs were poorly coordinated, which resulted in far more coordination change orders during construction, and then owners tossed drawings and operations manuals into a corner. I would strongly argue that Building Information Modeling has already dramatically increased our control of this metaphorical canoe, at all stages of a building’s lifecycle -- and you are well aware that I am no fanboy of Autodesk or Revit.

BIM is an idea, a process, a modern technique that recognizes that data is the new king, and efficient manipulation and control of that data is required for success. Thanks again for inspiring this discussion. - Peter Lawton

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When will the BIM article be available online? I'll write an intro and link to it on https://www.consiliavektor.com. I love this line: "In the end, BIM cannot be in charge of construction; construction is in charge of BIM." - Randall Newton, managing director Consilia Vektor

I just read your bleak overview about why BIM is not happening, and concur. I have spent many years using and implementing CAD in many fields ranging from architectural floor plans, electrical ladder diagrams to CAM. One of my very first major projects was the coupling of Prime Medusa with Oracle to create a BIM for the design HVAC [heating, ventilation, air conditioning] systems for hospitals and comparable major building projects. To us then, this BIM type capacity was well worth the effort required to implement it, which was and is a major task.

I like the analogy of leading a canoe through rapids. This is indeed how I often see building projects take place, not so well planned. As I am a pre-fab builder, I would like to expand the analogy to the way I build. I studied the trajectory through the pylons to know which turns are ahead; when I find a missing pylon along the way, I make a suitable adjustment to the unexpected situation. Basically, I have pre-programmed responses by working over the plans using different points of focus. In this way, a good BIM would help me.

The many iterations of hospital designs require extensive configuration management to prevent inconsistencies in designed systems. For example, a laminar-flow ventilation system for an operating theater may have left the plan some iterations ago:

A BIM-type system is invaluable to manage this type of complexity, where systems are spread over various types of design documents and 2D and 3D models.

A PDM [product data management] system might help a little, but is not fine grained enough to effectively manage all the objects.

I personally find 2D or 3D graphics are much more simple to grasp then object trees; i.e. the CAD models should be leading and BIM data following.

I hope the above is clear enough to show I still believe in the power of BIM.

My main disappointment, though, is that somehow CAD vendors have not succeeded in delivering effective systems; they are overtly complex to work with, or don't offer solutions to real world problems. As I see it, the best model is an approach comparable to GIS systems where CAD objects have the capability to add/show linked meta data.

I don't believe in pre-cooked systems containing endless structured data models. Each data model is very discipline-specific: an architect's view is completely different to that of a janitor. The structure of a BIM has to fit the specific needs of the parties involved in the project.

I expect that the main obstacle to BIM is that the party who has to fill the majority of the BIM, the architect, is also the one who has the least gain from using it -- meaning architects are not being paid to fill a project BIM properly. - Rene Dalmeijer, proces advies The Netherlands

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Great write-up on Canoe vs. River! - Chris Cadman

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Two true-life examples of BIM versus reality:1. The new head of engineering who didn't want to approve a new project proposal unless it included a list of unforeseen problems that were going to arise.2. In the days of ozalid blueprint machines, the original got turned over in the copying process and so "as built" was a mirror image of the original design. - Bill Fane Canada

Re: Mobile Apps for MCAD, Part 2: App Reviews

Thank you very much for including CAD Exchanger into you recent review. We are honored to earn the trust of an industry veteran like you. We are working on finalization of the public beta of our new CAD Exchanger Cloud and expect to offer a stable release around end of October. - Roman Lygin, ceo CADEX

Thank You, Readers!

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